However, in more complex societies, morality and law are never expected to be coextensive.
Examples of morally wrong behaviour are:
- Adultery – although it is considered by the most of society to be morally wrong. Adultery is not illegal by British law. Although, it is illegal in many places, including various states in America.
- Abortion – again, this, in wide-spread society is considered morally wrong but under strict guidelines and as long as the guidelines are followed it is not illegal to terminate the baby.
Examples of legally wrong acts are:
- Parking offences – these aren’t considered morally wrong as in no way anybody is hurt physically or mentally. However, it is illegal to park on double yellow lines or to park in a car park without paying.
Examples of morally and legally wrong conduct is:
- Bigamy – this is both morally and legally wrong. Morally its wrong as its deceiving a current spouse and being married twice. Legally its wrong as it is a criminal offence to marry more than once.
- Murder – Morally its wrong as it is taking a human being’s life with specific intent to do so. It also inflicts enormous grief upon individuals close to the victim. It is also legally wrong as to take an individuals life with intent is a serious criminal offence and can lead to life imprisonment.
As shown in the work by Mary Warnock and Émile Durkheim there are some major problems with morals existing in a diverse society. Mary Warnock pointed out that some people way consider a particluar topic as a matter of moralls, being it either morally right or morally wrong where as another society with their own morals believe its just a matter of personal taste where as another society may not be interested either way with the topic. She also pointed out that most attitudes towards a moral code will tend to change over a period time. E.g homosexuality, decrimalisation of this only happened fairly recently in 1967 up until that point, homosexaulity was deemed morally and legally wrong.
Durkheim showed us that in such a diverse and multicultural society it is very difficult to pinpoint code of moral values shared by all. Small extremeist or activist groups are likely to share the same moral values but in a more widespread and multi-national and multi-cultural socitety where indviduals differ in terms of social status, income, occupation, ethnic background, religion etc. It’s virtually impossible to find its members sharing the same, identical moral code due to people having their own individual conscience. However, some basic moral points are likely to have most members of society agreeing its right or wrong.
